Tempted to homeschooling Year 4 - where do I start?

[somethingonthewing]

School is utterly miserable at the moment, teachers always off sick with sore knees but seen riding horses, TAs that can't even do a year 4 spelling test, no PE or music lessons and now we have looming teacher strikes.

I think it's time we take DD out of school and home educate until secondary.

Can anyone recommend the best home school online resources?

I expect she's fallen behind with some subjects due to repetitive teacher "sickness" (same teacher for 3 years) so I'll have a lot of work to do to ensure she's caught up.

Thanks! (I'm quite nervous!!)

So embarrassed by typos! Autocorrect has a mind of its own

There are many online courses, but very few of them are free. If you want to do it by yourself then google national curriculum and take it from there.
However you do it, it will be very time consuming and impossible if you work.

@Avidreader69 I'm happy to pay. I just want her to be confident and ready. And bring back her enjoyment of learning

I only work 14 hours a week which I can do in the evenings. It will be worth the effort

Just think very carefully before you commit. I have home educated for the past 3 years and am about to put my son into year 3 after half term (he’s never been to school). I personally found it harder each year and eventually very isolating for both myself and him. We did have fun and I loved seeing him learn new things, fall in love with reading and go on lots of adventures.

But finding a consistent home Ed community was really hard and I found being responsible for all his social needs really started to take a toll. There are groups and activities (we went to lots!) but I found we’d see people once and then never again or groups would close after a while because it was too hard on the parent who ran it. I could only foresee this getting harder. I’ve seen a lot of Facebook posts from home Ed parents of teens trying to arrange friends for their child because they are lonely. I also found it hard that I could rarely see friends on my own because I always had my son with me and also felt that I should be doing school activities during that time, not socialising.

im sorry to sound negative but did want to share my experience so you can make an informed decision! There were a lot of positives but unfortunately the negatives eventually became overwhelming.

My friend homeschooled her son for a while using Tayberry? They did digital homeschooling across all subjects, but you could use them as a "top up" in the subjects you don't feel as confident teaching?

Thank you @Brandybucks so much for your honesty. I really appreciate your insight and it has made me think that maybe she stays in school - but I could support her school work with some "fun learning" at home.

Tricky. We don't have other schools nearby so we can't just add her to the list for another. Although she's on one and it's miles away! Long list though as forces children get priority (and rightly so!)

Ours is rated "requires improvement" for a reason. 😔

@bigfamilygrowingupfast yes they sound familiar from lockdown!

I'll have a look. I've calmed down a bit now!

I would be very concerned about a school which is telling parents why their staff is off. Or is this just gossip?

@40andfit I used to work there so am friends with everyone on FB including the teacher herself. HTH 🤩

And what has that got to do with this thread? Absolutely nothing. So off you pop

Yes, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing - you can absolutely supplement her learning and be very involved in her education without having to go the whole hog and home educate. I will always be interested in what my son is learning and I really enjoy suppling great books and going on interesting visits. If anything I think I’ll have more energy for it because it won’t be dominating my whole life! Good luck with whatever you decide. A tutor is another route you could consider.

That’s an incredible rude comment.

It has to do with how professional the school is or isn’t and how much you should trust them with your child’s education.

I think this one is ruder @40andfit - when it is unrelated to my question.

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm here for support.

If you don't understand that then you have very little self awareness...

I really enjoyed homeschooling and my DS benefitted from it enormously.

There are plenty of online school resources, both paid and free. The best place to find out about stuff is probably the home ed groups on Facebook.

In primary it is really not necessary to follow the school curriculum so I would just make sure you are progressing in English and Maths and follow your child's interest to develop other topics. For example, my DC was interested in animals so we did a lot of project work that encompassed biology and geography whilst incorporating lots of maths and English too. We would also go out somewhere each day (often just to walk the dog) but the learning would continue outside, exploring the world around us - counting things, measuring, understanding how things worked. We were very lucky to have access to beaches, wide open moorland and forests to explore with lots of wild life etc. We also visited museums and art galleries, National Trust properties, and anything else that was available in our area to learn about history and other sciences. If it was wet and miserable out, we might go to the local library or watch something on the Discovery Channel and discuss it afterwards. I think home ed should be about developing interests and a love of learning.

Please don't just give your child photocopied sheets of exercises or sit them infront of a computer as this will put them off learning for life. Also find clubs, activities and sports that your DC can enjoy after school with other children so that they do continue to develop socially as this is equally important.

Given that you have three years to get your daughter up to speed for secondary, there is no rush and no need to hit the ground running with the academics. The benefit of one-to-one attention and a programme aimed at her as an individual makes learning very efficient. Many home ed parents recommend taking some time off from formal learning when you first begin, to give you time to find your feet and explore the options. While your daughter is being HE, it makes no difference whatsoever if she is "ahead", "behind", or at the same level as her schooled peers. It's typical to be "ahead" in some areas and "behind" in others since you won't be exactly mirroring the school curriculum. I realise you have a goal in mind since you plan for her to rejoin school in three years and you don't want her to struggle then. But three years is a very long time!

As @Plantstrees says, there's no need to do worksheets. Those are used at school because the teacher doesn't have time for individual discussions with children, cannot monitor each child's progress while they all do different things, and needs to keep them quiet and orderly so the classroom doesn't become chaotic. Doing "school at home" would be missing a huge benefit of home education. If your daughter isn't enjoying what and how she's learning, you can keep experimenting until you get it right. Teachers have a much harder job than we do!

The best way to find local home ed groups is on Facebook. Go to the FB search bar and type "home education" followed by the name of your town, county, or area. That will give you access to social and educational activities. Where I live there is no shortage of things to do! You can also ask other parents about how they approach home ed and which resources they use. They might let you borrow some of their materials to try out before you part with any money. Families who are new to home ed are advised not to spend too much money just at first. Your child might not get on with what you buy! Not only would that be a waste of money, but it will also cause stress if you feel you have to force her to stick with something which isn't suitable.

Assuming there are vacancies in your daughter's year group at school, you have nothing to lose by trying home education. She can always return if you feel home ed isn't working out. If this seems like a possibility, you might prefer not to burn your bridges with the school by telling them too many home truths. You don't have to give a reason for withdrawing your daughter to home educate. If you do give a reason, it could be a positive one such as wanting to give her one-to-one attention or taking her on more trips, rather than finding fault with the school.

My daughter is year 4. We follow the national curriculum in some areas but not all. I really like IXL for maths. It's not a teaching program so We generally use it for practice of things she has learnt from the workbooks we use (scholastic and CGP). We also use the maths factor which I think is amazing although doesn't cover the entire maths curriculum, but in my opinion is unbeatable to multiplication, division, etc. Oak academy is free - the content is good, but I find the teaching really dull. However that's a personal thing and some love It. White rose maths is also worth looking at.

I'm home educating my son who is 5 and is wondering if there is any home education groups out there in Cambridge uk to join and interact with

Gosh don’t people get snippy really fast about fairly innocuous comments in MN these days.....

Hi @Sshore94 , most home ed groups are to be found on Facebook these days. Go on Facebook and in the FB search bar type "home education" followed by the name of your city. People who live more rurally might need to try their county, region, or nearest big town.

Hope that helps! If you have more questions, you might do better to start your own thread so more people will notice it and comment.

I'm not in Facebook or any social media so I don't know what else to do sorry I didn't mean too comment on your post I'm new and didn't know how it worked sorry

M athletics, Century tech, times tables Rockstars for maths.

’outschool’ for anything your child finds interesting.

but otherwise - don’t do ‘school at home’ homeschooling is wider than that.